Smithsonian.com

“Primal Carnage” Sets Players on the Hunt for Dinosaurs

So you have played through Turok and Jurassic: The Hunted several times already; what are you going to do to get your dinosaur-hunting fix?

While it probably will not be released until the end of this year, Primal Carnage will be the next entry into the ever-popular humans-gunning-down-dinosaurs subgenre. The story (humans hunting dinosaurs in the wake of a scientific experiment gone awry, yadda yadda yadda) is not terribly unique, but the game will differ from other titles in significant ways. Even though there will be a single-player story, Primal Carnage will primarily be a multiplayer game, requiring teamwork for players to complete each mission. Like other multiplayer games, players will have to pick a particular class with certain strengths and weaknesses, making it even more important for teams to work together. The paleontologist class, for example, is weaker than its counterparts but can pick off enemies at a distance using a sniper rifle (though I have never actually seen any real paleontologist go into the field so heavily armed).

But what will really make the game attractive is that it will give players the chance to step into the skin of dinosaurs. Players will be given the choice of signing up with the heavily armed human mercenaries or stomping around the battlefield as a toothy terror, including everyone's favorite, Tyrannosaurus. There are plenty of games that let you play as a heavily-armed soldier facing an army of hungry dinosaurs; how often do you get to join the conflict on the other side?

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About Brian Switek

Brian Switek is a freelance science writer specializing in evolution, paleontology, and natural history. He blogs regularly for Scientific American.